Defeat Feedback Fatigue

“What are you going to do with it?”, “It anyway is of no use”, ”I am not interested in giving any feedback”. We have experienced it ourselves and we are very confident that the people involved in the collection of patient feedback, frequently hear these comments from patients. Why does the patient think that providing feedback to the organization is not worth their time?

The problem faced here, which is very common for any feedback collection process is ‘Feedback fatigue’. This happens when the patient feels either that the feedback they give is not put to any proper use or the patient is just not impressed or interested enough to give feedback.

We, from our own first-hand experience, have developed a strategy to combat this common hurdle. The strategy is called ‘3A’, the three As standing for how you Approach the patients to gather feedback, how well you Address the questions and finally, how capable are you to Assure the patient that their feedback will be considered thoroughly and is worth their time.

There is no tool stronger than approaching with a smile that can warm up the patient to wholeheartedly express their experience. In the case of multiple feedback cycles, you can not have the same attitude each time and just throw feedback questions on the patient’s face. One has to develop a rapport and each encounter should be built upon the previous conversations. This is how you address the feedback cycle differently each time so that monotony is avoided and the patient feels comfortable to talk to you. Lastly, the patient should be assured that their concerns are taken care of. Each feedback cycle should have some update on the previous one. This will make the patients have an interest in sharing their day to day experience with you.

Good feedback forms the foundation stone for any good patient-satisfaction process. All the other important actions of the process, like addressing patient concerns, are dependant on the collection of good feedback. By considering the above-mentioned strategy, you make sure that the feedback coming into the system is of good quality and is not just for the sake of their collection.